An emerging area of technology with terminal devices, such as hand-held devices, mobile phones, laptops, PDAs, internet appliances, desktop computers, or other suitable devices, is the application of multi-modal information transfer. Typically resident on the terminal devices is at least one browser, wherein the browser is a program which allows the user to enter information fetch requests, receive requested information, and navigate through content servers via internal, e.g. intranet, or external, e.g. internet, connections. The browser may be a graphical browser, voice browser, JAVA®-based application, software program application, or any other suitable browser as recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Multi-modal technology allows a user to access information, such as voice information, data encryption, video information, audio information or other information, through at least one browser. More specifically, the user may submit an information fetch request in one mode, such as speaking a fetch request into a microphone, receive the requested information in any of a plurality of modes, such as the first mode, i.e. audible output, or a second mode, i.e. graphical display.
Within the terminal device, the browser may work in a manner similar to a standard web browser, such as NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR® resident on a computer connected to a network. The browser receives an information fetch request from an end user, commonly in the form of a universal resource indicator (URI), a bookmark, touch entry, key-entry, voice command, etc. Typically, the browser interprets the fetch request and then sends the information fetch request to the appropriate content server, such as a commercially available content server, e.g. a weather database via the internet, an intranet server etc.
Once the requested information is retrieved, the requested information is then provided back to the browser. Typically, the information is encoded as mark-up language for the browser to decode, such as hypertext mark-up language (HTML), wireless mark-up language (WML), extensive mark-up language (XML), Voice eXtensible Mark-up Language (VoiceXML), Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML), or other such mark-up languages.
Concurrent with the emergence of multi-modal technology, concerns arise regarding the different types of browsers, e.g. graphical, voice, etc., seeking data from the variety of different content servers. One such concern is the manner in which information is either provided to the terminal or provided to the user from the terminal. Depending on the specific content server with which the browser is interacting, certain input and/or output components may need to be modified. For example, for security reasons, if a user is accessing a banking server, it may be advisable to disable the graphics display to avoid anyone overseeing possibly sensitive information and enable a specific encryption application for the secure transmission of sensitive user information.
Currently, a user may manually enable or disable specific input and output components via a graphical user interface (GUI). Although, the content server provider may prefer different modifications of the input and output components than the user has pre-set. Moreover, the user must then manually un-modify the input or output component when they desire different settings.
As such, there exists a need for an improved multi-modal communication device and method.